LIFE OF WILSON. 



Having been " something of a traveller," it would be rea- 

 sonable to conclude that Wilson had been familiar with " novel 

 sights;" but we no where find that he ever beheld a toad leap- 

 ing into day, from its rocky domicil of five thousand years, or 

 a mermaid " sleeking her soft alluring locks" in the sun. That 

 wonder of the " vasty deep," the Sea Serpent of Gloucester, had 

 not attracted the attention of the public in his time; but if it 

 had, there is little doubt that he would have promptly exerted 

 himself to expose one of the grossest fictions that was ever 

 palmed upon the credulity of mankind. 



That the industry of Wilson was great, his work will for 

 ever testify. And our admiration is excited, that so much 

 should have been performed in so short a time. When we 

 take into consideration the state of our country, as respects the 

 cultivation of the physical sciences; and that in the walk of 

 Ornithology, particularly, no one, deserving the title of a Na- 

 turalist, had yet presumed to tread; when we view the labours 

 of foreigners, who had interested themselves in our natural pro- 

 ductions, and find how incompetent they were, through a de- 

 ficiency of correct information, to instruct; and then when we 

 reflect that a single individual, " without patron, fortune, or 

 recompense, 77 accomplished, in the space of seven years, as 

 much as the combined body of European naturalists took a cen- 

 tury to achieve, we feel almost inclined to doubt the evidence 

 upon which this conclusion is founded. But it is a fact, which 

 we feel a pride in asserting, that we have as faithful, complete, 

 and interesting, an account of our birds, in the volumes of the 

 American Ornithology, as the Europeans can at this moment 

 boast of possessing of theirs. Let those who question the cor- 

 rectness of this opinion examine for themselves, and determine 

 according to the dictates of an unbiassed judgment. 



We need no other evidence of the unparalleled industry of 

 our author, than the fact, that of two hundred and seventy- 

 eight species, which have been figured and described in his 

 Ornithology,* fifty -six had not been taken notice of by any 

 * The whole number of birds figured is three hundred and twenty. 



